The evolution of your comic V2

Webkilla · Post by **Webkilla** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:02 pm

early comic:

Too much text, not as much attention to detail as later on... and way too much text

Now in comic:

Far more refined lineart, more attention to detail and spread of text... and far better jpg-compression!

ShineDog · Post by **ShineDog** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:00 pm

maybe its the examples, but im not sure i see significant improvement.

try a second example with some people in it.

Mo · Post by Mo » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:13 pm

prettysenshi2k6 wrote:It baffles me to no end how even though everyone's style has changed dramatically over time, they kept various things consistent. I just suck at consistancy, it makes no sense.

BTW, Cookie's transition to her style now is awesome!!

Aw, thanks.

Warofwinds · Post by **Warofwinds** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:36 pm

I've uh, had a lot of changes in my style. Obviously

EDIT: and would someone explain to me the reason why suddenly "I'm Special" ?

JTigerclaw · Post by **JTigerclaw** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:43 pm

It stemmed from this.

Another debate on who is special and who is regular and why it matters (or doesn't)

Legendary · Post by **Legendary** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:57 pm

Well, of course Who's special, he's the friggin' Time Doctor!

Warofwinds · Post by **Warofwinds** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:03 pm

Since I got that joke, am I a dork, superspecial, or just totally in the right crowd?

Multiple answers are not allowed

Ataraxia · Post by **Ataraxia** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:35 pm

prettysenshi2k6 wrote:It baffles me to no end how even though everyone's style has changed dramatically over time, they kept various things consistent. I just suck at consistancy, it makes no sense.

Something that's helped me with consistency is making reference images of my characters, then going back to those during the drawing process. In the past, sometimes the first time I'd draw any given character was when illustrating the actual comic... I've come to learn that this is a very bad thing to do.

TRI · Post by **TRI** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:09 pm

ataraxia wrote:In the past, sometimes the first time I'd draw any given character was when illustrating the actual comic... I've come to learn that this is a very bad thing to do.

Heh. That's still one of my bad habits. I hardly ever do any character design work before hand. That's why all my boy characters look alike.

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 11:35 pm

warofwinds wrote:Since I got that joke, am I a dork, superspecial, or just totally in the right crowd?

Multiple answers are not allowed

Yes.

It's a single answer!

Derenge · Post by **Derenge** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 12:37 am

I hope I've not stalled out this year.

Hallonpress · Post by **Hallonpress** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:43 am

Killbert-Robby wrote:Elia looks like the kind of woman who should be on a mountain top yodeling.

In a very tight leather corsette.

LOL at that!

I kinda see what you mean, though...

Phalanx wrote:
prettysenshi2k6 wrote:
pierce studios wrote:
Excuse me while I go read your comic.
A comic starring three girls in a fantasy setting?

*bookmarks*

And welcome to the forums.
Mmm. I dig that art style too. *bookmarks*

Thanks, all of you! Some unintended comic pitching going on, it would seem.

It's good to be here. I hope you enjoy WBK!

Oh, and there's a thread about it in Comic Pitching, if you'd like to give feedback. Always appreciated

Cortland · Post by **Cortland** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 6:29 am

(copied from my own forum)

I forgot how much fun it is to look back at your own artwork every now and then and see how you progress over the years. Today's comic reminded me of that since I included a few links to earlier comics to explain some of the characters I was referencing.

http://www.cortlandcomic.com/d/20040713.html

This was back from the early days on Keenspace. I did most of my pencils while watching one hour of Whose Line is it Anyway down at the clubhouse at my apartment complex. Afterwards, I used a Sharpie and a fistful of other felt tip pens to do the inking. I used some heavy stock paper I got from Dick Blick, which came in packages of 100 sheets for $5. It wasn't as smooth as Bristol, but it suited me fine. The sheets were 9x12 inches, so I would fold them in half and use a 6x9 half page for one comic. My comics were quick and sloppy, but churning out five comics a week was a sinch. On average, a comic took about half an hour to an hour to create from start finish.

http://www.cortlandcomic.com/d/20051005.html

WOW. Big changes here. It was more than a year later, and drawing five comics a week now took up the better part of a weekend. One comic took right around two hours to complete from start to finish, often consuming the better part of my entire weekend. I had been using a set of Faber-Castel pens to ink my panels, mostly the brush pen and the small "s" nibbed pen. You can tell I'm paying a whole lot more attention to detail, shading, composition, and adding small details to finish each panel. I was still using my 6x9" half sheets of paper, which made cramming all the details into one comic a bit crampy.

http://www.cortlandcomic.com/d/20061020.html

I finally collapse in June after updating every weekday without stopping for over two years. I had been unhappy with my comic for a variety of reasons, the foremost being I no longer had the time to draw five comics every week at the level I wanted. After a few months' rest, I started again. I still use the Faber-Castel brush pen along with a few other sizes, and I also started using some Micron 500 pens for very fine details and shading. I started using the full 9x12 inch sheets of paper, which gave me a whole lot more room to fill up. I also started seeking advice from artists I admire such as Humbug for advice on composition, shading, anatomy, and other things. Most importantly, though, I was only draw three comics a week now. That meant on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday night I would pour as much as time and energy as I could on just one comic until I was satisfied. I often find myself still polishing things up after midnight. Above all, I was happy doing comics again!

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:05 am

Everyone looks so unhappy in 2006!

Except Chad, that bastard.

Reinder · Post by **Reinder** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:21 am

prettysenshi2k6 wrote:It baffles me to no end how even though everyone's style has changed dramatically over time, they kept various things consistent. I just suck at consistancy, it makes no sense.

A few days ago, I went through your archives, and to be honest, I noticed this. I found it very hard to tell your characters apart from each other, and only the colours clued me in as to which figures were the same characters between panels.
Now, you were only, what, fifteen? sixteen? at the start of Circle Arcadia, and you have gotten better at this, and everything else, in the two and a half years you've been working on the comic. You've come a long way. But the character design is still a bit of a problem.

I found myself wondering if you'd ever made model sheets for your characters? Or character studies, or size comparison charts. I'm making some now (because of a project in which other artists will draw my characters), and even after drawing my characters for fifteen years, I'm finding it very educational. It's a bit of a chore; look for examples of model sheets on Google Images to figure out for yourself how simple or how extensive you want them to be. But they do make it easier for you to know what your characters look like.

I'll be scanning and posting my model sheets over the next week, while working on other projects. One thing I did for the project has been posted on my DeviantARt site though: A size chart for the characters involved. More to come.

Reinder · Post by **Reinder** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:26 am

The line art and character designs in What Birds Know remind me of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting. Do you read that, hallonpress?

Hallonpress · Post by **Hallonpress** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:26 am

reinder wrote:The line art and character designs in What Birds Know remind me of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting. Do you read that, hallonpress?

No, as a matter of fact. But I've heard of it, and have been meaning to, if I can get hold of it. Living in Sweden has it's disatvantages, even if you live in Sweden's "comic capital"

Starline · Post by **Starline** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:35 pm

But even within this year my style has been changing a lot.
This is a recent pic of Candi.

Berg · Post by **Berg** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 4:30 pm

starline wrote:But even within this year my style has been changing a lot.
This is a recent pic of Candi.

I'll say. You took away her legs!

Cortland · Post by **Cortland** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:39 pm

Jim North wrote:Everyone looks so unhappy in 2006!

Except Chad, that bastard.

I did not notice this before, but yes. I can see this quite clearly now.